BUSINESS PEOPLE; A Member of Jac's Pack Has Her Own Pack Now

As Ford Motor's vice president for customer service, Kathleen Ligocki was a rarity in a male-dominated industry. Now she's in an even more unusual spot. Ms. Ligocki has been named chief executive at Tower Automotive, a midsize auto parts supplier, succeeding Dugald Campbell, who is retiring.

Ms. Ligocki isn't the first woman to run an auto supplier. Johnnie Breed served as the chief executive of Breed Technologies, a safety-components company founded by her husband, Allen, that is now part of the Key Automotive Group. But in a brutally competitive world that is even more alpha male than the auto companies, Ms. Ligocki will definitely stand out.

She has been on a fast track since she joined Ford in 1998, as part of ''Jac's Pack,'' a group of executives recruited to the company by Jacques Nasser, its former chief executive, who was on a drive to diversify Ford's ranks by bringing in more women and more people with outside experience. Ms. Ligocki ran Ford's Mexican operations before shifting to her current job.